I could make a top ten list of sorts, but instead, I'll just give you the facts about a recent transaction there.

As some of you may know, recently my wife purchased a 2006 Chevy Uplander. She bought it from XXXXXXXXXXXX Chevrolet in XXXXXXXX, GA. (I'm guessing that you knew that from the title of the thread).

She did this deal on her own and did a great job. Of course, we were familiar with the folks at Bill Heard, given that this was the fourth vehicle we'd bought there over the last six years.

From the beginning, my wife explained what she wanted to do, which car she wanted to trade in, and what the payment had to be. Period. No surprises.

And the guy first came back with "I found the perfect car for you, and the payment is $X," which was only $105 more than she said we wanted to pay.

The wife and I both knew the game, so she said "That's not the price I'm looking for, so either make the deal better or no thanks."

This went on for four or five days. Finally, our salesman found the perfect vehicle in Dahlonega, GA and had it brought to the dealership on a Friday afternoon about three plus weeks ago. Then the wife and I dropped urchin 1.0 off at the in-laws across the street while we took urchin 2.0 and our trade to the dealership.

Everything went fine and took the usual two hours longer than the "We'll be done in 15 minutes" that they give you, but we expected that too.

We checked over the numbers, shook on the deal, took possession of the car and went home, my wife giddy as a schoolgirl, or in this case, as giddy as a soccer mom.

Jump forward about 2.5 weeks and we get a late notice on the payment for the vehicle we no longer own. We also receive a bill for the new Trailblazer we just bought.

That's right. Somehow the dickbags messed up the VIN AND description on the contract so that, according to GMAC and XXXXXXXXXX dealership, we were now the proud owners of three Chevy Trailblazers and zero Chevy Uplanders.

My wife, diligent and with great attention to detail, began unraveling the "mystery."

The first mystery was that the guys that wrote the contracts were dumbasses, and that starts with our salesman and goes up to the finance guy and the sales manager. I'm sure that it's SOMEONE'S job to make sure that the car you put on the contract is actually the car you sold to someone.

Step back to when we bought the two Trailblazers in 2004. To make things easier, the dealer applied all rebates and discounts (we get the GM employee discount) to one vehicle, making the payment for one Trailblazer forty bucks more per month than the other one.

Anyway, we then, we come to find out that the wrong vehicle has been traded. We advised XXXXXX dealership that we were willing to trade whichever vehicle gave us the better deal, and our salesman insisted that trading the vehicle with the higher payment would benefit us the most. He never said "the one with THIS VIN," or "The silver one." He just said "the one with the higher payment."

Now, since he has access to our original purchase info, our current GMAC finance file and has spoken to us AND GMAC at the same time to confirm the details, we are sure that he's aware of which vehicle is which.

Then we got a bill for the Trailblazer we still had, and it was the one with the forty dollar higher payment.

Oddly enough, we got a call last Thursday from the dealership. They wanted to "stop by and correct an error on the mileage listed on our contract." We checked that and found it to be right, but realized that basically every other piece of information on the contract was wrong.

So I called said salesman last Thursday to discuss this and to ask why, among other things, did he take the wrong vehicle after recommending the wrong vehicle based on payment amount, he denied ever having that conversation about trading either vehicle or which trade benefited us the most or anything else.

He also advised us that our old Trailblazer was already sold.

We then got to play the "He's not here but he'll be back Monday" game trying to reach the salesman, finance guy or sales manager by phone.

Right. Like the sales manager doesn't work Fridays. Please.

We got no call on Monday, nor could we reach anyone. (No surprise there).

So I called yesterday, explained everything, and the sales manager asked if I could come by and that, "if we were lucky, we would somehow find that the old vehicle wasn't gone yet and just swap them and make everything right."

I said that right to me meant getting my old vehicle back with the $319/month payment and the van at it's current payment of $390.

"No problem," he said. If we can get lucky enough to locate the old car.

I quick got my Trailblazer washed and headed over to the dealer, sure that, now that we'd agreed to a deal, they'd "magically" be able to find the old Trailblazer.

And sure enough, they did. "You're so lucky," the sales manager said. "One of our guys found it WAY in the back," and then he explained how dealerships can lose trade ins all the time.

Riiiiiiight.

So in we went to the Finance guy's office (who by the way is a walking cliche: former pseudo-successful college football player that got signed by an NFL team, but blew out his legs in year two, and now he's the assistant finance guy at a disgusting car dealership on the wrong side of the tracks in Buford, GA).

He explains about all of the hours he's spent re-hand writing the contract. (why do I give a shit? That's your job). By the way, if you can't tell, by now I'm getting a bit testy.

So I sit. And sit. And sit. The only (and I do mean only) good part was that I got to read a LOT of my most recent book, "Masters Of Chaos: The secret history of the Special Forces" by Linda Robinson. If I could make an emoticon, I would insert a VERY small semi-smiley right here.

Finally, as we're sitting in the finance office, I glance over at the new contract and it says the payment is $433.02

$433.02!!! What the mother fucking fuck is that?

This entire thing was about having a lower net payment in the household by trading our vehicle with the higher payment, and now the new van payment is $53 higher than it was, while the Trailblazer payment only dropped $40, so basically this whole new process has upped my net payment by fifteen damned dollars?

Uhh...no fucking way there, Joe Willie Namath. Not gonna happen.

So then we start the "what do you mean, you aren't going to make the deal" part of our program where they let you sit and stew and then tell you how great the deal is and ask why you wouldn't make the deal over fifty five measly dollars, etc. They also explained that the $50 difference was due to the fact that my car (a 2004 model identical to my wife's except it's black and has a whopping 20k on it vs. her 13k) is worth two grand less than hers as a trade.

I am now boiling. If you know me at all, you know that I'm beyond boiling and nearing much worse.

So I said "Look, you guys dropped the ball on this from minute one, and I'll tell you what. My wife really wants this car. I'll eat $20 of the $55 if you guys find the rest in the trade-in. How's that sound?"

Then I get the head finance guy telling me (and showing me some screen that could have been from a fucking etch-a-sketch) that they were already losing $158 on the van in the current deal and that since I was a GM employee discount recipient, there was no wiggle room.

I said "If you're losing money selling me that car then no wonder your manufacturer's on the ropes. And if there wasn't wiggle room, then where did my sales-genius over there get another three grand out of my wife's car on the original deal from? Was that money he found in the fucking ashtray?"

(Okay, I didn't say the ashtray line, but man I should have).

So the sales manager comes in again and just tersely says "So where does that leave us?"

I replied "The deal's off and I'll be returnng the van."

He then shook my hand in that "I'm gonna squeeze your hand so you'll know how powerful and important I am despite being a foot shorter than you" way, and I went home.

Mind you, I had gotten there a bit past 4pm and it was now 7:30pm.

The wife cleaned out the car, cried some very angry tears, and I headed back up to Bill Turd and got there at 8:15pm.

The sales manager (whom I will now refer to as the head sales dick) said "did your salesman know you were coming back tonight?"

"Ummmm...I don't know," I said. "But I'm here and would like my other car back."

He replied "I don't know where the keys are and I'm not sure where the vehicle is at the moment."

Really? You had it 45 minutes ago on the fucking curb with the keys in your smarmy little fucking hands, but since then you, the Head Sales Dick, has lost both my keys AND my fucking car?

"That's fine. You find them both. I'll wait."

And I did. For ninety God Damned minutes.

While I did read more, I was having difficulty comprehending the information since I was busy plotting two crimes: the deaths of the Head Sales Dick, the sales weasel AND the cliche as well as my own very public boycotting of Bill Turd Chevrolet.

Of course, he came back to me and sat next to me to tell me "we're still looking real hard for the keys and the car" every fifteen minutes. He was also kind enough and professional enough to say "What's the big deal about fifty five dollars? I mean, you know your personal finances more than I do, but I would think that fifty five dollars would be worth keeping your wife happy."

You may now correctly assume that I was .000001 percent away from my fit-pitching, obscenity-laden boiling point right there in the lobby full of smoke stained sales weasels and young go-getters cold calling and wearing five gold bracelets on one hand.

Instead I said "That's fine. I'll be back for it tomorrow."

However, I don't think I'm going back. I think what I'm going to do is park it on the curb in front of my house, lock the keys in it and call Bill Turd Chevrolet and say "You can come get the car as long as you bring mine clean and full of gas along with the coupon for $1,000 off my purchase and the $1,400 you owe me."

I'll keep you posted, but know that this isn't over by a longshot.